Supervision Requirements for Applicants from Non-accredited Courses
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Supervision Guidance for Applicants from Non-accredited Courses

The requirements for Accreditation are in Section 7 of the Minimum Training Standards and Criteria 3e, 3f and 4 of the Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist Accreditation Guidelines

Amount of Supervision

To meet accreditation requirements - you must have received at least 40 hours of clinical supervision, with a minimum of five hours’ clinical supervision for each of the eight training cases.

The key principle is that supervision meets your needs as supervisee. You may need more supervision depending on your clients, CBT course and stage of training. 

Individual and Group Supervision

Clinical supervision may be one-to-one or in groups of no more than four. You must have opportunity for individual supervision. 

We use a formula to calculate individual ‘equivalent’ clinical supervision hours received when in a group setting -

The total time spent in the group is divided by the number of supervisees. This time is then doubled.

Example one - four supervisees in a group for two hours -

2 hours divided by 4 = 30 minutes then x2 = 1 hour each.

Example two - three supervisees in a group for 1 hour 45 minutes -

1 hour 45 minutes divided by 3 = 35 minutes x 2 = 1 hour 10 minutes each

Example three - a group of two supervisees are able to ‘count’ all of the time spent in supervision as equal to individual supervision hours.

Content of Supervision

Supervision of your clinical practice must include working with diversity and personal and clinical development needs. Clinical supervision is most effective when it includes ‘live’ or ‘close’ supervision as well as other methods such as role play or modelling as well as case discussion.

Case management does not count as clinical supervision. 

Close Supervision

You must receive ‘close’ or ‘live’ supervision. This is when your supervisor observes your clinical practice either by observing a session as it happens or reviewing a recording.  Joint therapy sessions with your supervisor can also be counted.

Closely supervised training cases

For your three closely supervised training cases (for section 3ei of the application form), you must show that you are competent. A complete treatment session must be marked using a validated scale such as the CTS-r for each of these three cases. The assessor must be trained in using the scale.  You can find more information in our Close Supervision Guidelines

You must receive at least five hours of clinical supervision on each of these three closely supervised cases, and more than this if it is needed. This total for each case can be achieved through a combination of supervision methods. For example – a specified number of minutes per week discussing the different phases of therapy or reviewing whole hours’ recordings together. 

Other live supervision 

In addition, there must be live supervision in at least 50% of your supervision sessions during training. This means at least 20 instances of live supervision within your CBT supervision during and since your training. 

These do not have to be 20 full supervision hours and recordings of whole sessions or extracts can be reviewed. Extracts should be long enough to be sure that feedback and development can happen. For example, reviewing a section because an issue came up in the relationship, or a part of the session where a particular technique is being used. 

The use of CTS-R or other validated measurements of clinical competence are recommended during some of these 20 instances of live supervision. You and your supervisor should agree how often this should happen. 

Supervision Contracts

You must have a CBT clinical supervision contract. This will include the agreement between you and your supervisor on how your supervision needs will be met. 

Supervision Logs

You must keep a log of your clinical supervision during training, and provide these details on the supervision log within Criterion Four of the Provisional Accreditation application form.

Supervisor's Report

You must provide a current Supervisor’s Report with your application for accreditation. If you have been with your current supervisor for less than six months, you must also supply a report from your previous supervisor. 

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